Beekeeper's Be Kept has a blissful buzz

You know that feeling you get halfway through a tall boy—that wave of warmth washing over your body, replacing the grimness of the workday with a blissful buzz? Well, local indie rockers Beekeeper have found a way to replicate that glorious sensation on Be Kept.

A rambunctious debut packed with clever math-rock rhythms, cutesy boy-girl vocals, and off-the-cuff flourishes, the album deserves a sack full of gold stars. Opener “Table and Bed” kicks off with talk of belching before turning to sugary-sweet harmonies and a walloping pop-punk chorus to make its joyful point. “Nice Lunch” loosely recalls Sloan’s “The Good in Everyone” before dropping down a sonic notch and exploring the moodier depths of indie rock. These tracks, and the 11 others featured on the disc, hit the spot, but when heard back to back they almost feel erratic and reckless in terms of the genres at play.

But ambition should never be faulted—especially when the crew in question is helmed by a duo as talented as multi-instrumentalists Devon Lougheed and Luke Cyca—so Beekeeper gets away relatively unscathed here, beyond, of course, the gentle suggestion to simplify its modus operandi. It’s hard to knock them for more when they’ve found a way to weave sturdy hooks around fancy rhymes hinged on words like autobiography.